The mother of all anniversary issues.

THE 50th anniversary of NATIONAL REVIEW is a very big deal, and you're holding in your hands a big-deal issue. It runs to 120 pages, includes multiple sections, and boasts a cast of thousands. Actually, about 70--that's (roughly) the number who have contributed. Do you want a little overview?

The issue begins, essentially, with The Week, our editorial section, still called "The Week" even though we became a biweekly in 1958, three years after we started publication. Your Notes & Asides is very special: WFB publishes the remarks he made at our anniversary gala in October. (We had another gala about five weeks later, in celebration of WFB's 80th birthday. Stay tuned for material on that in our next issue--a non-anniversary one, but still distinguished, we hope you'll agree.)

Then we have ten ideas for "increasing liberty in America"--some of our clearest thinkers give those. The ideas range from school choice--a no-brainer, you would think--to a national ID card, a bit more controversial among conservatives. Then we have a feature hailing 15 unsung, or unheralded, conservatives of the last 50 years. We could have hailed innumerable more. Our publisher and CEO, Ed Capano, said that his favorite unsung conservatives were the readers and donors who have kept NR afloat for this half-century.

Then we give you ten essays--ten essays, on various (fairly weighty) subjects, by ten eminences. That is followed by a section called "What NR Has Meant to Me," in which 20 individuals relate ... well, you know.

Then it's time for "Fun 'n' Games," a piece by Priscilla Buckley, managing editor of NR for almost 30 years, drawn from her hot new book about the magazine (Living It Up with National Review). Priscilla is followed by five of her longtime NR colleagues, who give their recollections of hanging around the place.

And then we hit you with some causes--six of the causes we have espoused, all of them successful, ...